United Kingdom: Air traffic is severely disrupted, flights canceled or delayed at several airports in France.

Many flights to and from the UK were delayed on Monday due to a “technical glitch” that was identified and fixed, according to UK air traffic authorities.

Several flights to British cities such as London, Manchester, Bristol, Dublin and Edinburgh have been canceled at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly airports. The same observation from the airports of Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) or Nantes (Loire-Atlantique). Air France explains to the Parisian that it canceled six flights to the UK on Monday.

“We are currently experiencing a technical issue and have imposed traffic (flight) restrictions for safety reasons,” the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) said in a press release issued at 13:00 Paris time. “Until our engineers fix this, flight plans are entered manually, which means we cannot process them at the same speed,” they said.

Return from holiday for the Brit

Later in a new statement, NATS said it had “identified and corrected a technical issue”. “We are now working with airlines and airports to manage the affected flights as best we can” in relation to the accident, the press release said.

The incident comes at a time when Monday is a public holiday in the UK and ends a long weekend for Britons, many of whom are returning from holiday. The country’s largest airport, Heathrow, said it was “working closely” with air traffic authorities and other airports to “minimize the impact” of the disruption on passengers. “We are seeing delays and possible flight cancellations,” Gatwick Airport said on Network X (formerly Twitter).

“Like all airlines using UK airspace, our flights have been severely disrupted due to a major issue affecting air traffic control,” British Airways warned. “Today we had to make some significant changes to our schedule,” she said.

Eurostar provides additional train service between Paris and London

Many other airlines, including EasyJet and Ryanair, have also announced flight delays and cancellations, and feedback from travelers stranded across Europe is mounting. “Now on a plane on the runway at Budapest airport,” wrote BBC presenter Gabby Logan. “We have just been informed that the airspace is closed. We could stay there for 12 hours,” she added on the X network (ex-Twitter).

For its part, Channel-crossing rail company Eurostar said it would launch an additional train between Paris and London on Monday evening “due to disruptions to airline operations in the United Kingdom.”